Speaking of the Southland

The current Rivals recruiting ranks of yesterday's signing classes has Northwestern State tied for third nationally. The Demons, who were ranked No. 1 last year fell in place behind No. 1 Appalachian State and No. 2 South Carolina State, while sharing a spot with No. 3 Richmond.

Thought it will not be too long until NSU begins promoting this accolade and there's no question that they should not, I have never been much a fan of the scouting services. Each of them are very reactionary to what happens as individual rankings change on a whim.

Outside of the top players in the country and in some of the 'hot spots' like Texas, Florida and California - do these people really have a good feeling about how these perspective student-athletes are ranked? Doubtful.

It is not surprising when a one or two star recruit according to these one sites changes to a five star recruit the next week when the offers begin to roll in from top five programs like Texas, Notre Dame, Florida and USC. It is extremely difficult to put much stock in these rankings, though it sure looks good on the resumes of the coaching staffs who put them together.

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Texas State has hired [url=http://www.nsudemons.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=20000&ATCLID=1377771]Slade Nagle[/url] to serve as offensive coordinator, replacing Travis Bush, who departed for UT-San Antonio. Nagle's most recent stint was as an administrative intern at LSU.

Nagle knows a few things about running offenses in the league, doing so as both a player and an offensive assistant.

As an undergrad, Nagle led McNeese State to two playoff appearances, after transferring home Lake Charles, La. from Clemson. After graduating from McNeese, Nagle moved on to join the Northwestern State coaching staff as an offensive assistant and helped the squad reach the 2002 playoffs. Nagle had another stint with the Demons after returning from Dodge City CC in Kansas

One of Nagle's first decisions was working Bobcat head coach Brad Wright on determing the direction of the team at quarterback.

According to the [url=
http://www.statesman.com/sports/bobcats-satisfied-class-fills-the-needs-with-speed-212563.html]Austin American-Statesman[/url], Nagle and his staff wanted to make sure to get another quarterback on the roster.

"It affected us in a very positive way," Wright told the Statesmen. "We sat down as an offensive staff and we made a decision to go after a quarterback. Previous to that we weren't actively recruiting a quarterback."

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[b]Southland Conference Quick Hits[/b]

• My column regarding the Southland Conference and City of Frisco's pursuit of the national championship game has been submitted to the CSN editorial staff. Look out for that one when it hits the site!

• Sources are reporting that former Nicholls State head coach Jay Thomas has taken a job at Northwestern State as a member of the defensive staff. If accurate, Thomas would follow in the footsteps of former Demons head coach Scott Stoker in taking a job at another school within the league after serving as a head coach. Stoker is currently a defensive coordinator for Sam Houston State.

• Twitter has really changed how quickly national letter of intents are known. Both [url=http://twitter.com/BearkatSports]Sam Houston State[/url] and [url=http://twitter.com/Sluathletics]Southeastern Louisiana[/url] were active on the Twitter front when posting the signees as the faxes were approved by the compliance offices. With most of the league schools on Twitter nowadays, it would have been nice to see more involvement from around the league as signing day in this part of the national landscape is truly one of the most important athletic events of the calendar.

• A full list of student-athletes signed from each of the schools is available on the [URL=http://www.southland.org/ViewArticle.dbml?temp_site=NO&DB_OEM_ID=18400&ATCLID=204880794]Southland Conference[/url] web site. Additionally, Russell Burnett supplied this link to me, that includes [url=http://huddleuptexas.com/NSD10.htm]all Texas high school signees[/url] listed by high school.